Monthly Archives: May 2019

Summer’s almost here, so let’s talk about HEAT. It’s amazing how many words we have on the subject. A quick scan of the Word Voyage database revealed 8 root families that mean heat, fire, glow, warm, cook, or ripen. Let’s take a look at them:

Hot Root #1: cald, calor, cauld, chaf, chal, chaufLooking at the various spellings of this root, words like scald, calorie, cauldron, and chafe jump out. Some others that are less obvious are nonchalant“not warm, not having concern for”; and chauffeur, which originally meant “a stoker.” This word goes back to the days of steam engines, but in the early 1900’s it transitioned to the sense of “professional driver of a private motorcar.” So a chauffeur is one who has the car warmed up and ready to go.

An interesting outlier in this family is coddle, which was originally used as both a noun meaning “warm drink for invalids” and a verb “boil gently.” The modern meaning “treat in an indulgent or overprotective way” is said to have first appeared in Jane Austin’s Emma:

“My dear Isabella,”—exclaimed he hastily—”pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I choose.”

Another outlier is chowder, from the French chaudière “a pot,” which maps back to the Latin calidus “warm, hot.”

Hot Root #2: cand, cend, cens, chandThis root also delivers a nice variety of words. We know a candle is “that which burns, makes light.” Given this, one might assume that a candidate is one who brings light, clarity. But no, this word comes from the Latin candidatus “white-robed.” Those Roman guys loved their togas, and if they were running for office they made sure it had “brilliant whiteness.” With that said, the cand root does bring the idea of “clarity” to candid and candor. Similarly, the filament in an incandescent bulb helps us see clearly by glowing white hot.

A chandler is a maker or seller of candles, a chandlery is a storeroom for candles, and a chandelier is a holder of candles and “that which shines.” Incense is something we burn, and to be incensed is to be “inflamed with anger.” Incendiary “capable of setting fires” is often used figuratively to mean “incite, rouse, excite, enrage.”

Hot Root #3: caust, cautHere we have caustic “capable of burning; corrosive”, and cauterize, from the Greek kauter “burning or branding iron.” Interestingly, this family also includes calm, probably from the Latin cauma “heat of the mid-day sun.” And there’s also ink, from the Greek enkaustos meaning color that is “burned in.”

Hot Root #4: coct, cuis, kitchThis is the cooking family that serves up cook, kitchen, kiln, concoction, culinary, and cuisine. We also have terra-cotta “cooked earth.” And of course, there is food: biscuitand biscotti“twice-baked”, ricotta “re-cooked”, and apricot “early ripening.”

Speaking of early ripening, this root family is also home to precocious “pre-cooked, ripened before (others)”, describing kids that have amazing talents at an early aged.

Hot Root #5: fer, fervHere we have another root about “boiling, hot, and glowing.” The verb ferment “to leaven, cause to rise” maps back to the Latin fervere “to boil, seethe.” Effervescence comes from the same Latin word, but the added prefix ef creates the sense of “boiling up, boiling over.” As with so many “heat words,” it can be used figuratively: “high-spirited; vivacious; lively; sparkling.” More family members include fervor, fervent, fervid, and perfervid, among others. An interesting outlier is comfrey, “boil together”, referring to the plant’s medicinal use.

Hot Root #7: pyr, pyroPyr rhymes with fire and means it too! There are many familiar words in this family, e.g. pyre, pyrotechnics, pyromania. The noun empyrean, from the Ancient Greek empyrus, “in or on the fire” refers to the highest heaven, which was supposed to be occupied by the element of fire. The adjective form empyreal might be used to describe a particularly radiant sunset.

Hot Root #8: therm, thermoThis last root on the list is very familiar, anchoring words like thermometer, thermostat, thermal, thermos, hypothermia, thermodynamics, and geothermal, as well as terms like endothermic and exothermic.

OK, we burned through the Heat Roots. Stayed tuned for the next hot topic!

Verbs. They seem so simple, yet they can cause so much head scratching. Here is my attempt to clear up some of the confusion:

Confusion #1: Linking VerbsMany students don’t know that words like is, are, am, was, be, and been are verbs. These are worker-bee words, but what do they do? Here’s a simple explanation: a Linking Verb acts like an equals sign.

This soccer game is exciting!This soccer game = exciting.

I am a huge fan. I = a huge fan.

Linking Verbs are the only type of main verb that does not show action. Rather, they join the subject to a noun or an adjective that identifies or describes it. This is what is meant by “state of being.” And here’s some great news: There’s only about 20 of them in the English language. I say “about” because there are varying opinions on the exact list, but there seems to be consensus on these:

Confusion #2: “Be Verbs” that aren’t Linking VerbsThe second and third groups above can also be action verbs, but it’s common to hear that forms of be are always linking verbs. Hm. What about this sentence?

The lion is chasing the antelope.

Here we have is working as a helping verb with chasing to form the present continuous tense. Remember: to decide if a verb is linking, we must use the “equals sign” test. Here’s another example:

Harriet is home.

Saying Harriet = home is not quite right. Home does not identify her, nor does it describe her. It tells us where she is. This is what we call an adverbial noun. It doesn’t function as a direct object, so that makes is an intransitive-complete verb in this context. It expresses action, but it does not transfer the action to an object. Weird! A way to make sense of this is to substitute exists for is, so the subject and intransitive-complete verb together would be Harriet exists.

Confusion #3: Transitive vs. Intransitive VerbsIt’s one thing to show action and another to transfer it. Transitive verbs work with a direct object that “receives” the action. If there is not a direct object, the verb is intransitive. To determine if a verb is transitive, insert what? or whom? into the sentence. For example:

Lyle called Stephanie for the 14th time. Lyle called whom?Stephanie (the direct object of the transitive verb called). The weather was hot, so I drank from the stream.I drank what? I drank whom?

The questions are not answered. The prepositional phrase from the stream answers the question where, but this is not the same thing. So in this case, the verb drank is intransitive complete because a prepositional phrase can never be a direct object–a good rule to know!

Side Note: Refer back to the sentence in the previous section: Harriet is home. Let’s change it to Harriet is at home. Now the verb is is followed by the prepositional phrase at home. Does this change the status of is? No, itremains intransitive complete because, again, prepositional phrases can never be direct objects.

Confusion #4: InfinitivesAlong with gerunds and participles (see below), infinitives are known as verbals, “words formed from verbs that don’t act as verbs.” Infinitives are almost always preceded by to, e.g. to swim, to sing, to read, etc. Since they can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, they can be quite confusing!

Infinitive as a noun:Trevor loves to eat. The infinitive is the direct object of the verb loves.

Infinitive as an adjective:Trevor has a sandwich to eat. The infinitive describes the noun sandwich.

Infinitive as an adverb:Trevor must eat to survive. The infinitive modifies the verb eat.

Confusion #5: Infinitives without “To”To-less infinitives, also known as “bare infinitives” will often show up after the verbs feel, hear, help, let, make, see, and watch.

Trevor helped me make dinner. To is not needed before make, but the infinitive phrase make dinner still functions as a noun and the direct object of the verb helped. This makes we the indirect object. Here’s a similar example:

He helped me understand the recipe.To is not needed before understand.

Sometimes bare infinitives are hard to spot because adding to back in would be awkward:

He watched me stir the soup.We would never say to stir the soup in this context, yet stir the soup is still an infinitive phrase functioning as a noun and direct object. Keep an eye out for feel, hear, help, let, make, see, and watch. They signal that a bare infinitive may follow!

Confusion #6: GerundsAnother kind of verbal, gerunds are famous for always ending in ing and always functioning as nouns. Because nouns can do lots of jobs in a sentence, gerunds can show up all over the place.

A gerund as the subject of the sentence:Eating will make Trevor very happy.

A gerund as a direct object:Trevor loves eating.

A gerund as an indirect object:Trevor gives eating all of his attention.